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The conference Negation and Clitics in Romance is concerned with central aspects of the description and formalization of variation in the expression of negation in Romance, with a special focus on clitic exponents of negation or exponents in close morpho-syntactic interaction with clitics (distribution, cluster, morpho-phonologic phenomena etc.). Clitics can be considered as morpho-syntactic elements that are ' neither clearly independent words, nor clearly affixes ' (cf. Zwicky 1977: 1), they are phonologically weak and often show special syntactic behaviour as well as a tendency towards affixation and disappearance and are hence often subject to linguistic variation. This can be observed for instance in modern French (cf. Jean (n’)aime pas les pommes), where the realisation of the clitic negation particle ne varies according to intra- and extra-linguistic factors, (such as the morphosyntactic and phonological environment, the socio-demographic and geographic origin of the speakers, and the communication situation).

From a typological and diachronic point of view, the conference will examine the following questions: What type of morphemes appear in multi-morpheme negations in Romance? In which way are they related to the Jespersen cycle (cf. Jespersen 1917, 1924)? From a theoretic and formal point of view, the conference seeks to explain and to model the interactions between the different elements in clitic clusters: Which models are suitable for their description? Could cycles of grammaticalization be used as patterns in order to map synchronic variation? In the last decades questions have been raised concerning the status of negation as a functional phrase. Is it necessary and useful to assume a functional negation phrase and where is it located (in the Romance/Indo-European languages and in a general way)? Is it convincing to assume that a clitic (like French ne) is the head of the negation, or are we supposed to reconsider our formal models of negation (cf. the critical discussion in Peters 1999)?

15.00-15.45 Old French negation, the Tobler/Mussafia law, and V2 (Richard Ingham)

Coffee break

16.15-17.00 Factors affecting the use of impersonal il in Spoken French: implications for change in the clitic system (Jennifer Culbertson)

17.00-17.45 The interplay of multiple descriptive factors for the understanding of a text language, illustrated by the negation in Old French. A study of manuscript variation of ne-Ø, nemie, ne-pas, and ne-point (Lene Schøsler & Harald Völker)